Green councils may have mounted a legal challenge against the mayor of London’s housing policy, but their record doesn’t match up

There is a rich irony in Green Party mayors launching a legal challenge with Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets. The Court of Appeal has already ruled that Mr Rahman unlawfully removed low-traffic neighbourhood schemes from his borough.

But quite apart from the peculiarity of this alliance, the Green Party’s record of opposition to housebuilding in the capital, including 100% council-home schemes, speaks for itself.

“Politics is a tough business, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this level of opposition is more about political point-scoring than delivering homes for local families in desperate need”

My own borough, Islington, is a case in point. This is a place where we pride ourselves on squeezing the highest possible number of genuinely affordable homes out of any developer-led project. With the backing of the secretary of state for communities and local government, Islington Council went all the way to the High Court in the Parkhurst Road case in 2018 to secure a policy-compliant 50% genuinely affordable homes.

The largest housing project in the borough in a generation is on the last large-scale brownfield site: the former Holloway Prison. Here, with the help of the mayor of London, 60% genuinely affordable homes, including 42% for social rent, has been achieved. Yet this development was condemned as “monstrous” and a “horror” by a local Green Party candidate, who later went on to brand Labour councillors who voted in favour of the application at the planning committee as “selfish”.

The Green Party also opposed the Barnsbury Estate redevelopment, which comes with a net gain of 135 new social-rent homes and was backed by 78% of estate residents.

These are, of course, developer-led schemes. Perhaps the Greens only want council schemes with 100% council housing?

In Islington, again with the help of the mayor of London, the council has been able to build eight 100% council-home schemes. Sadly, Green Party candidates also opposed Islington’s 100% council-housing project at the Wedmore Estate and the City of London’s 100% council-home development on the Golden Lane Estate, right on our borough’s border.

Together with Dixon Clark Court – a council scheme of over 50% council homes – this all adds up to a total of 658 council and social-rent homes that Green Party candidates or councillors have opposed in Islington. Politics is a tough business, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this level of opposition is more about political point-scoring than delivering homes for local families in desperate need.

“We can’t tackle a decades-old structural problem by legally challenging a London mayor who is working hard to boost affordable-housing numbers at a difficult time”

The cross-subsidy model of building social rent homes has indeed faced great difficulty in recent years. Previous generations were not reliant on this system.

Under Clement Attlee’s 1945 Labour government, 700,000 new council homes were completed. In 1952, the largest architectural practice in the world was at London County Council, with 1,577 staff including 350 professional architects and trainees.

These were the days of consensus, and very quickly Tory governments were  competing with Labour governments about who could build the most council homes.

But a crisis that started with the end of council housebuilding following Margaret Thatcher’s arrival at Downing Street in 1979 will not be resolved overnight, and certainly cannot be laid at Sir Sadiq’s door. An honest and frank debate is required. This starts with an acknowledgment that we can’t tackle a decades-old structural problem by legally challenging a London mayor who is working hard to boost affordable-housing numbers at a difficult time.

Early indications of a new emphasis on council and social rent homes from a possible Burnham government are welcome – I look forward to hearing more on the detail. In the meantime, Sir Sadiq is acting to rev up construction.

By contrast, this legal challenge seems to be a fundamentally unserious stunt. The council and social-rent homes that we need won’t be delivered through cynical political posturing.

Diarmaid Ward, former Labour councillor, deputy leader and executive member for housing and development, London Borough of Islington